Entwined in Grapevines

From that initially scary but magical evening in 1966 in Tucson, Arizona where we attended our first meeting (insisting that our soon-to-be sponsor park his car in the rear so no university colleagues might see us walking toward an AA meeting), my wife and I were "struck sober"--transformed through a mysterious epiphany--by the loving force of the Fellowship. Despite an enormous hangover--hot flashes, quaking hands, and pulsating nausea--I, along with my equally shaky wife, were astounded by the fresh and novel message we heard that night--that our wildly excessive drinking was an illness, a treatable illness, and that we weren't alone.